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Drones aren’t just for taking aerial photos or racing through obstacle courses—they are revolutionizing how marine biologists interact with the environment.

A video report from PBS dives into the role drones are playing in the study of humpback whales. The drones are safer, cheaper, and more precise than alternative aerial methods such as helicopters. They document rare behaviors such as bubble net feeding and migration to remote parts of the Southern Hemisphere.

Drones are a technology that’s really changing how we study a lot of things in Marine environments,” Dave Johnson, the leader of Duke University’s Marine Robotics and Remote Sensing Lab, says in the video.